


where the winds of limbo roar

by ratsalad



Category: Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29305731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratsalad/pseuds/ratsalad
Summary: It dawns on Captain K that he might want kids.
Relationships: Freddy Finkel/Captain Klenzendorf
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	where the winds of limbo roar

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by Blue Öyster Cult. The mood of the song matches that of the story, so you might enjoy listening to it as/after you read.

Captain Klenzendorf had never really given kids much thought. He worked with them now, and he would probably have to until the war ended, but beyond the Hitlerjugend, they did not occupy many of his thoughts. Had he ever wanted kids? He couldn’t remember a time. When he’d been young, well… such preoccupations hadn’t generally bothered the minds of young, hot-blooded men—at least not until he’d realized he spent far too much time thinking about other young, hot-blooded men. _Then_ the questions, the doubts, the mortifying fears had begun to flood his every waking hour—especially at the outset, when he was just beginning to find himself, _really_ grasp who he was with a definitive sense of awareness instead of the vague, radio static consciousness that yes, maybe he found his brother’s friend Mathias sort of handsome.

No. This awareness had been the pointed, questioning kind, firmly and reasonably paranoid, with years and fears under its belt. The kind that kept him up until the beginnings of dawn simmered outside his bedroom window, dull red like a nebulous headache, bringing no answers to questions like, “Would I still have to marry?” A woman, of course, not a man. “Won’t it be strange if I don’t?” “Would I have to start a family with her?”

Never any answers. Not later, when he’d met Freddy in that club in Berlin—an event that had only ignited (amongst other things) more goddamned questions—and definitely not when he’d been conscripted, or in the trenches, where his paranoia began to manifest physically. He remembered returning to the barracks one night clutching a sheet of paper that held not the answers he so desperately sought, but a prescription for antacids.

He’d stopped taking them the further they were into the war; his worries were temporarily quelled by more immediate fears—“Like Russians,” Freddy had said when Klenzendorf had asked him similar questions during a quiet, dangerous moment between them in the Wehrmacht. Klenzendorf did not feel compelled to bring it up again: what were social compulsions in the face of a glorious, warrior’s death? He had to want _that_ , at least.

 _Apparently didn’t want it enough_ , he thought to himself now, blinking dust out of his bad eye. His bitter fingers hovered over the Iron Cross on his chest before reconsidering and reaching for his hip flask again. He hadn’t _expected_ to ever “come back from war,” so he certainly hadn’t anticipated his nosy prick of an aunt asking him why he hadn’t taken a wife yet, he’d have such fine-looking children!

Yes, he couldn’t remember a time he’d ever thought about wanting kids, _really_ wanting them—

—and yet, later that day, as he watched Jojo limp wretchedly out of the HJ office, clutching Rosie’s coatsleeve with his meaty, ten-year old fist, something _ached_ in him.

It wasn’t unfamiliar. It was the same ache that tightened his chest whenever he held Freddy close while they danced in the kitchen of his flat at three on a Sunday afternoon, with the drapes drawn closed. Light would press in from outside but illuminate little; it was always dark when he had Freddy over. They’d stepped over a narrow sunbeam on the floor together, distorting it, and he’d felt fragile as a glass vase. So Klenzendorf had done what he always did. He’d drowned out the crooning from the gramophone, the ache that meant they’d been doomed from the start, burrowed closer into Freddy’s form in the half-light and felt Freddy’s grip on his shoulders grow just a tad desperate.

“All right?” Freddy shook him out of his thoughts with a breeze of a touch between his shoulders. Klenzendorf gathered himself enough to nod—

—but not convincingly enough. “What are you thinking about?” Freddy’s voice was quiet, meant for his ears only, and that alone made the ache rush back into him like a repressed memory. Here, in the office, there were no drapes. Here, the full sun played with Freddy’s hair, weaving it into gold, strand by strand.

Here, they hid in plain sight.

It took Klenzendorf everything he had in him to look Freddy in the eyes and say, “Nothing,” the image of Jojo still burning in his mind.

  
  


After they’d helped the kids drowning in the pool and Jojo had left (still with a great number of unasked questions about Jews, Klenzendorf was sure) he and Freddy settled by the pool again, and he couldn’t help but notice Freddy worrying at a pretty lip. He made an inquisitive noise around his cigarette and looked at him over the tops of his shades.

“Hm?” Freddy turned to him. “Oh. It’s—I was thinking about Jojo. He’s a good kid, but just so…” He shifted one leg on top of the other. “…disconcertingly enthusiastic.”

Klenzendorf waved a hand. “Give him time.”

A smile pulled at Freddy’s mouth.

“What?”

It grew wider. “This looks ridiculous on you.” He gestured to Klenzendorf’s swimming cap.

“Ja, ja.” Klenzendorf snorted, but he was smiling, too. He watched Freddy drink from his flask. He’d found it strangely warming to see him concerned about Jojo, even if only for a moment. It didn’t take long for the tightness in his chest to resurface like an unanswered question. “Do you—” he started impulsively, but his voice betrayed him, so he held his hand out at about four feet from the ground.

Freddy looked at him like he was an idiot. Klenzendorf decided he couldn’t do this by himself, and took the flask from, drinking deeply. “Do you. Do you want kids?”

The other man inhaled sharply and looked around to see if anyone had heard.

“No Russians here, Finkie,” Klenzendorf said quietly. Kids shrieked and splashed water at each other around them, but in that moment, the world had shrunk to just the two of them, as if they were in their own, private little bubble. Just him and Freddy.

“Yet,” Freddy said with a breathy laugh that Klenzendorf hoped never to tire of. Evidently at ease now, he turned ever so slightly towards him. “With you?” A pause. Then, hoarsely, like he needed to clear his throat, “What’s the point of wanting?”

Klenzendorf stilled. “Am I hearing a yes?” he asked over the rush of blood in his ears.

Freddy nodded shyly. “In another lifetime, perhaps.”

And there he went, feeling all fragile again. Klenzendorf stared out at the pool. What had he expected? His thoughts wandered to the pink triangles they’d cut out and locked up in a drawer in his flat, for the outfits they’d drawn. They knew how their finale was to unfold; they’d been doomed from the start.

He felt Freddy nudge his shoulder gently with his. “You?”

Klenzendorf breathed in a lungful of chlorine. “With you, in a heartbeat.”

Freddy’s hand found his on the tiled bench and rested there. Klenzendorf’s own was shaking a little, he was aware, but he left it there, even intertwined their fingers. They were pushing their luck with the gesture, perhaps, but the ache in him turned into a thing bittersweet, a little like victory. They watched the children swim and passed the flask between themselves, in celebration of what could never come to be.


End file.
